The guiding principles of nuclear war: If nuclear weapons exist only as a deterrent to threaten huge urban areas, then why have the armed forces spent so much time and money making their missiles deadly accurate?

AS THE division of the world into Cold War blocs passes further into history every day and the superpowers promise large reductions in their weapons and armed services, we need to understand the forces that shaped and sustained these arsenals. Above all, if the world is to remain a safer place, we must appreciate how technology and politics interact in the planning of nuclear war.

Such an understanding has to incorporate how things are seen by the people who control the arsenals. They are the 'nuclear insiders', such as missile designers, generals and defence officials. What they do and why they do it often bear little relation to what the public is told. But in the US at least, a documentary record of the early development of the nuclear arsenal is beginning to emerge from the archives.

One technology crucial to the arms race has been missile guidance. Over the ...

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